NUMBER OF POTENTIAL PATIENTS TO BE TREATED WITH PROTON THERAPY IN ITALY

In radiotherapy, the use of proton beams is one of the most promising approaches in order to reduce the treatment volume and, consequently, increase the total dose avoiding severe complications to the normal ti ssues surrounding the target. Among the new hospital-based facilities that are planned for the next future, the italian project is in an adv anced stage of study. Because of the complexity and high cost of the i talian centre, one of the most important information in order to estab lish the cost/benefit balance, is represented by the number of potenti al patients to be treated for the various pathologies. For this reason it is useful to define a priority scale of clinical indications and, on this basis, to estimate the yearly patient afflux to the center, ta king into account the incidence and the expected new cases to be treat ed with protons. Indications have been divided into two categories, ac cording to decreasing priority. Category A includes all the tumors in which the use of proton therapy has clearly demonstrated to be advanta geous, being the only way to give a curative dose to the target. In It aly, the extimated number of this category of patients is 825 each yea r. Category B comprises a great variety of tumors characterized mainly by a local evolution, with a limited likelihood of distant spread, an d therefore potentially cured if the local control can be obtained. Th e total number of potential patients in this category is more than 10, 000.